Whitewash claims over bishop cleared of drunkenness

The Church of England was accused of a whitewash after a senior bishop was cleared of drunkenness.

The Bishop of Southwark escaped disciplinary action even though a report by a senior judge found "substantial evidence" to indicate he was drunk.

He was said to have been the worse for alcohol in December after he climbed into the back of a stranger's car and threw toys out of it, saying "I'm the Bishop of Southwark. It's what I do."

But after examining all evidence, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has ruled no legal moves should be made against the Right Reverend Tom Butler under Church law.

A key witness to Dr Butler's behaviour revealed he had not been asked to give evidence to the Church inquiry.

The owner of a Mercedes into which the bishop climbed uninvited after attending an Irish embassy party said: "This is a whitewash."

Paul Sumpter, 40, told the Evening Standard: "I would have told them, but I have never been asked. I know steaming drunk when I see it and he was steaming."

The case came into the spotlight again after a report on the incident prepared by a judge was leaked. It said there was "substantial evidence" indicating Dr Butler had been drunk.

The report, by Judge Rupert Bursell QC, a senior circuit judge and an Anglican priest, said that if the allegation was proven, there were grounds for disciplinary action against the bishop for conduct unbecoming a cleric.

But the judge's preliminary report did not include Dr Butler's side of the story. The bishop was injured while travelling home and says he cannot remember how. At first he thought he had been mugged.

Medical evidence presented to the Church suggests amnesia due to head injuries was an entirely reasonable explanation-of the events.

The judge's report said there was "sufficient substance" to a complaint against the bishop made by a Church layman to justify disciplinary proceedings.

Under the Clergy Discipline Measure, the Church law on how errant priests are dealt with, the bishop could have faced a rebuke, if further investigation had concluded that he had indeed been drunk.

The report advised Dr Williams to dismiss the complaint, as in law the layman was not a senior enough figure to make it stick.

Dr Williams later arranged a second complaint and carried out a further investigation. After hearing the medical evidence, he ruled there should be no further action against the bishop.

A spokesman for the Archbishop said the second complaint "enabled the bishop to give his own account of what had happened".

Judge Bursell's report discounted some allegations against the bishop, he added.

"This report is based on only the complainant's account. For that reason, the report does not make any judgement as to the truth of the allegations.

"A footnote makes it clear that other evidence 'may in due time put a different complexion on the matter' and, crucially, a clause in brackets makes it clear that the question of the truth of any allegation is yet to be determined: Chancellor Bursell qualifies references to the alleged drunkenness in the complaint with the phrase 'if it occurred'."

• A headline in some editions of Tuesday's Daily Mail suggested that "the Church" found Dr Butler was drunk. We are happy to make clear - as detailed above - that the Church did not come to that conclusion.